Novell Vibe Add-In 1.0.1

July 2013

The Novell Vibe Add-in for Microsoft Office enables you to work with documents on the Vibe site without leaving Microsoft Office. You can easily browse to a document that is located on the Vibe site, open the document, edit it, then save it back to the Vibe site, directly from Microsoft Office.

You can work directly from Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint documents running in a Windows environment.

3.0 Opening a Document

You can open a Vibe document by browsing to it directly from Microsoft Office, or you can open a Vibe document from the Vibe site, and configure the Vibe site to always launch the document in Microsoft Office.

Opening a Document You Have Not Recently Opened

(Conditional) If you are using Microsoft Office 2013, you can open documents also from the Backstage view:

Click Open Other Documents from the Backstage view.

The Open dialog box is displayed.

Click Vibe in the left-hand column.

Recent documents are displayed in the Recent Documents column.

In the Vibe column, double-click Open.

(Conditional) If you have configured multiple Vibe sites, click the drop-down in the upper left corner of the dialog box to select the site that contains the document that you want to open.

Navigate to the document that you want to open by using one of the following methods:

Expand the appropriate workspaces, then select the workspace or folder that contains the document that you want to open.

When you select a workspace, all documents that are contained in any sub-folder or sub-workspace in the workspace hierarchy are displayed.

In the Search field, specify the name of the document that you want to locate on the Vibe site, then press Enter.

This searches entries as well as documents in all workspaces and folders where you have rights to view entries. It does not search for folder names.

Select the folder in the Recent Places section if you are opening a Vibe document that you have recently opened or saved from Microsoft Office.

Select the document, then click Open.

3.2 Opening a Vibe Document from the Vibe Site

You can open a Vibe document in Microsoft Office directly from the Vibe site:

Navigate to and open the entry that contains the file that you want to edit.

(Conditional) If the file that you want to edit is an attachment, click the Attachments tab.

Only Files folders can contain files that are not attachments.

Next to the file that you want to edit, click Edit This File.

The file is launched in Microsoft Office.

4.0 Editing an Existing Vibe Document

You can use Microsoft Office to directly edit documents that are located in your personal workspace, one of your team workspaces, or one of your favorite places on the Vibe site. Users can open the same document, edit it, and merge changes in near real time.

To co-edit a document, multiple people open the same document and edit it simultaneously. If you want to restrict others from editing a document at the same time as you, you can lock the document, as described in Locking a Document.

To co-edit a Vibe document with the Vibe Add-in:

Open the same Vibe document that other collaborators have opened, then make your changes.

For information on how to open a Vibe document in Microsoft Office directly from Microsoft Office or from the Vibe site, see Opening a Document.

Click Save.

If the changes you made conflict with the changes of a collaborator, you are prompted to choose one of the following actions:

Merge:
Combines your edits with the edits from your collaborators.

This feature is supported in Word (2007 and 2010) and PowerPoint 2010 by default. It is not supported in any version of Excel or in PowerPoint 2007.

Merge and Review:
Combines your edits with the edits from your collaborators and highlights any changes that have been made.

This feature is supported in Word (2007 and 2010) and PowerPoint 2010 by default. It is not supported in any version of Excel or in PowerPoint 2007.

Cancel:
Temporarily hides the prompt to merge your changes so that you can continue making edits and combine them with edits from your collaborators later.

Click More Options to reveal additional options:

Update:
Discards your changes and opens the collaborator’s version of the document.

Overwrite:
Overwrites the collaborator’s version of the document with the version that you are now creating.

Collaborators who are also working on the document see a notification informing them that changes have been made to the document. Collaborators can then choose an action from the same options, which are Merge Changes, Merge and Review, Cancel, Update, and Overwrite.

4.3 Editing a Read-Only Document

When you open a document, it appears as Read-Only if it is locked by another user or if you don’t have rights to modify the document. You can still edit the document. However, when you save the document by pressing Ctrl+S or by clicking Save in Office, you are prompted to save a copy of the document to your local file system.

To save the document back to the Vibe site:

In Microsoft Office, click the Vibe tab, click Save or Save As, then choose a location to save the document on the Vibe site where you have rights to create a file.

4.4 Editing a Document After Losing Connection to the Vibe Site

If you lose your connection to the Vibe site while editing a Vibe document in Microsoft Office, the Vibe Add-in for Microsoft Office saves your document. You can continue editing the document offline, then re-save the document to Vibe after you reestablish a connection to the Vibe site.

Saving Documents to Vibe after You Regain Your Connection to the Vibe Site

After you regain your connection to Vibe, you can save the documents to Vibe. If you were working on multiple documents when you lost your connection to Vibe, you can view all the documents that you were working on, then decide whether you want to save the documents to Vibe or delete them.

If the document you were editing is still open in Microsoft Office, simply click Save to save the document to the Vibe site.

or

If the document you were editing is no longer open, click the Vibe tab in Microsoft Office, then click Pending > Manage.

The Manage Pending Uploads dialog box is displayed.

Select the document that you want to manage, then click one of the following options:

View File:
Opens the Upload folder where the document is located on your local file system. You can then open the document to view its contents.

Upload:
Uploads the document to the Vibe site. If there were other changes made to the document since you last uploaded it to the Vibe site, you are prompted with the options discussed in Co-Editing a Vibe Document.

Delete:
Deletes the document from your local file system. The document is not uploaded to the Vibe site.

5.0 Locking a Document

You can lock a document while you are editing it to prevent others from editing it at the same time. If you do not lock the document, you might be co-editing the document, as described in Co-Editing a Vibe Document.

With the document open in Microsoft Office, click the Vibe tab, then click Lock.

A Lock icon is displayed next to the document name in the Dashboard, indicating that the document cannot be edited by other users.

To see which user is locking the document:

Mouse over the Lock icon next to the document name in the Dashboard.

6.0 Saving a Document to the Vibe Site

After you create a document in Microsoft Office, you can save the document directly to your personal workspace, one of your team workspaces, or one of your favorite places on the Vibe site.

With the document open in Microsoft Office, click the Vibe tab, then click Save As.

Specify a name for the file, then use the drop-down list to select the type of extension that you want to use for the file, such as .docx.

(Conditional) If you have configured multiple Vibe sites, click the drop-down list in the lower right corner of the dialog box to select the site that you want to save the file to.

To save the file to a Files folder, click the Location drop-down list, then click the Files folder in your personal workspace, team workspaces, or favorites where you want to save the file.

or

To save the file to any type of folder, click the Location drop-down list, then click Browse to browse to the folder in your personal workspace, team workspace, or favorites where you want to save the file.

When files are saved to folders other than Files folders, the files are created as entry attachments.

You can save a document only in workspaces and folders where you have rights to create a Vibe entry. If you do not have rights in a folder to save a document, the workspace or folder is not displayed in the Vibe folder structure.

(Optional) Click Show additional properties to specify a title or description for the document.

If a document with the same name already exists in the folder, select from the following options:

Save As New Version:
Saves the document as a new version of the existing document.

Overwrite:
Overwrites the existing document with the document you are saving.

Rename:
Allows you to rename the document or save the document to a new location.

7.0 Viewing Information about a Document

Vibe documents reside in entries that contain additional information about the document, such as who created the document, who last edited it, a document description, comments, and more. You can view this information within Microsoft Office.

With the document open in Microsoft Office, click the Vibe tab, then click the Dashboard button if the dashboard is not already displayed on the right side of the page.

View the following information about the document:

Title:
Title of the document.

Click the document title to launch a browser and display the entry that contains the document in Vibe.

12.2 Comparing Previous Versions of a Document

With the document open in Microsoft Office, click the Vibe tab, then click the Dashboard button if the dashboard is not already displayed on the right side of the page.

Next to the document title, click the current version number to display a list of previous versions.

Right-click the version that you want to compare with the current version, then click Compare.

Differences between the two versions are displayed with underlined red text.

12.3 Incrementing the Major Version Number of a Document

By default, when you create new versions of a file, Vibe tracks the versions with minor version numbers. For example, 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, and so forth. You can increment the major version number of the most recent version of a file. For example, version 1.2 becomes version 2.0.

You can increment the major version number of a file directly from Microsoft Office:

With the document open in Microsoft Office, click the Vibe tab, then click the Dashboard button if the dashboard is not already displayed on the right side of the page.

Next to the document title, click the current version number to display a list of previous versions.

12.5 Promoting a Previous Version to Be the Current Version

With the document open in Microsoft Office, click the Vibe tab, then click the Dashboard button if the dashboard is not already displayed on the right side of the page.

Next to the document title, click the current version number to display a list of previous versions.

Right-click the version that you want to promote to be the current version, then click Promote To Current.

12.6 Deleting a Previous Version of a File

With the document open in Microsoft Office, click the Vibe tab, then click the Dashboard button if the dashboard is not already displayed on the right side of the page.

Next to the document title, click the current version number to display a list of previous versions.

Right-click the version that you want to delete, then click Delete Version.

12.7 Changing the Status of a Previous Version of a File

If you have multiple versions of a file, you might want to set a status for each version to help keep track of the official version, the draft versions, and so forth. Files can have the status of Official, Draft, or Obsolete.

With the document open in Microsoft Office, click the Vibe tab, then click the Dashboard button if the dashboard is not already displayed on the right side of the page.

Next to the document title, click the current version number to display a list of previous versions.

Right-click the version where you want to change the status, then click Status > None, Official, Draft, or Obsolete.

13.0 Viewing Other Files in the Same Vibe Folder

You can quickly view other files that are located in the same Vibe folder as the document that you are currently viewing.

With the document open in Microsoft Office, click the Vibe tab, then click the Dashboard button if the dashboard is not already displayed on the right side of the page.

Click the folder that contains the document.

All the documents contained in the folder are displayed in the Open Document dialog box.

14.0 Checking for Updates to a Document

When you are using Microsoft Office to edit a document, you can check to see if there have been any updates to the document since you began working on it.

With the document open in Microsoft Office, click the Vibe tab, then click Update.

If there have been changes to the document, you can take any of the following actions:

Merge:
Combines your edits with the edits from your collaborators.

Merge and Review:
Combines your edits with the edits from your collaborators and highlights any changes that have been made.

Cancel:
Temporarily hides the prompt to merge your changes so that you can continue making edits and combine them with edits from your collaborators later.

If you select this option, the document version is displayed in red, indicating that you are working on a non-current version.

Click More Options to reveal additional options:

Update:
Discards your changes and opens the newer version of the document.

Overwrite:
Overwrites the new version of the document with the version that you are now creating.

15.0 Viewing the Entry in Vibe

Vibe folder entries contain documents as either main documents in File entries, or as attachments in any type of entry (such as a Blog entry). When you view an entry in Vibe, you can perform various actions on the entry that you can’t perform from Microsoft Office, such as sharing the entry with another Vibe user, modifying access controls to the entry, and more. For more information about folder entries in Vibe, see Working with Folder Entries in the Novell Vibe 3.4 User Guide.

When you edit a document in Microsoft Office, you can quickly view the entry that contains the document in Vibe.

With the document open in Microsoft Office, click the Vibe tab, then click View Online.

Log in to the Vibe site.

The Vibe entry that contains the document is displayed.

16.0 Providing a Link to the Document

You can copy the link to the document that you are currently working on, then use instant messaging or e-mail to send it to other users who might be interested in the document.

With the document open in Microsoft Office, click the Vibe tab, then click Copy Link.